Bourbon Shares Soar on Buy-Out Offer

PARIS, March 17 (Reuters) – Bourbon shares jumped 24 percent on Monday after the French ship supplier said its main shareholder, Jaccar Holdings, was planning to make an offer to buy the company.

The offer is conditional upon Jaccar obtaining 50.1 percent of the capital, as well as bank financing, Bourbon said in a statement.

The proposed bid is for 24 euros per share, Bourbon said. The stock closed at 19.33 euros on Friday, valuing the company at 1.44 billion euros ($2.01 billion). The shares were trading at 23.96 euros by 0814 on Monday.

Bourbon said its board would review the terms of the offer at a meeting on March 21.

Jaccar currently owns 26 percent of the group, according to Bourbon’s website, and is the private holding company of Bourbon Chairman Jacques de Chateauvieux. It is also a major shareholder of Sinopacific Shipbuilding, Sapmer and Piriou.

Bourbon runs a fleet of close to 500 vessels ranging from tugs that can tow oil drilling rigs to fast crewboats that can move personnel between offshore platforms.

The company forecast earlier this month that sales would rise 8-10 percent this year after growing 10.5 percent to 1.31 billion euros in 2013.

Bourbon said it expected to be spared from a sectoral slowdown in investment by its oil company clients, which it said would increase spending on deepwater offshore projects by 10 percent annually over the next three years. ($1 = 0.7181 Euros) (Reporting by James Regan, editing by Louise Heavens)